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Chip market on the rebound, claims SIA

by Mike Magee

Further signs that the chip market is on the upturn came from industry body the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) yesterday.

The organisation said that the overall market is set to grow by over nine per cent next year, while memory products, CPUs and the digital signal processing sectors are all showing particularly healthy signs.

According to the SIA, the global market will grow to a position where it is worth $133.4 billion in 1999, and that is set to rise to $182 billion by 2000.

Steve Appleton, chief executive of Micron, made the forecasts at an SIA awards ceremony in the US.

He said: "While 1998 has been a tough a year where we experienced a negative 10.9 per cent growth rate, the underlying fundamentals of the semiconductor business are strong."

The SIA is forecasting that 1999 will show a positive growth figure for chips. That is underlined by a forecast from Intel yesterday that its Q4 will be healthy, while Dram memory prices are continuing to climb gradually.

According to the trade association, Dram revenue will grow by 25 per cent to $16 billion in 1999, while in the following two years it will grow by 28 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively.

While CPU sales will level off in 1998 to $23.6 billion, next year the market will grow by over eight per cent, and in the years 2000 and 2001 by 15.9 per cent and 17.6 per cent. That will make them worth $35 billion in 2001.